Read Online The Brave Apprentice by P. W. Catanese - Free Book Online

Past a scattering of evergreentrees, there was a wide flat beach where a tiny fisherman’s house stood. A boat was pulled on shore and turned upside down, waiting for warmer days when it might be useful again. Just beyond that sprawled the snow-swept ice of Lake Deop.
    It was only a moment later that the hound at Ludowick’s side leaped out of the wagon and ran, whining, into the forest. Ludowick pulled back on the reins and the single ox that was hauling the wagon slowed and stopped. Ludowick stood up, peering at the hillside.
    “Get out of there,” Mannon whispered. As if hearing him, Ludowick vaulted over the side of the wagon and dashed into the forest. “Over here,” Addison called, just loud enough to be heard, and Ludowick joined them, finding his own tree to hide behind. “They’re coming,” Ludowick said. It was another cold day, but Patch noticed sweat trickling down the knight’s temples.
    Patch saw shapes moving through the trees on the hillside, dark against the thin crust of frozen snow that remained on the ground. A group of the trolls stalked onto the road. Hurgoth, the massive troll they’d encountered at the river, was among them—easy to spot with his pale, chalky skin and the small pack strapped to his back. He strode toward the ox, his spiked club in his hand. Patch closed his eyes as the club rose.
    “Wait—what about the ox?” he’d said an hour before, when he realized his plan meant doom for the animal that hauled the poisoned wine. “There must be sacrifices,”Addison had replied. “Or hadn’t you considered that?”
    The sound came, a terrible crack of wood on bone. When Patch looked up again, Hurgoth had picked up the ox in one hand
—one hand!—
and tossed it to another troll.
    “Go on, fellows, have some wine,” Gosling urged.
    The trolls surrounded the wagon and laughed, pleased with their prize. A particularly fat troll lifted one of the casks and began to pry at the spigot. Hurgoth snarled at the troll, then turned to say something to the rest. The trolls lifted the dozen casks out of the wagon and carried them back up the hill.
    “Didn’t they drink the wine on the spot yesterday?” Addison said to Ludowick. Ludowick nodded, frowning.
    “Maybe they’re saving it to wash down the ox,” said Gosling.
    Addison stared up the hill at the retreating trolls. “Then we shall have to follow them.”
    Addison led the way to a ridge that overlooked the lair of the trolls. They lay on their stomachs and crawled to the edge to peer over. Below them, in a bowl-shaped depression in the hill, they could see the trolls milling around the gaping black mouth of their cave. The ox had been skewered and was suspended over a fire, and the casks of wine were in a pile, unopened.
    “What do you suppose they’re doing?” Mannon wondered, scratching the back of his neck.
    “And where’s Hurgoth?” Gosling asked.
    As if to answer the question, Hurgoth emerged from the cave, trailing a rope behind him. He tugged at the rope, and a man came stumbling behind, with the other end of the rope knotted around his waist. The man was gangly and loose-limbed, with unkempt, straw-colored hair and—strangely—a loopy, happy grin.
    When Patch saw him, his mouth dropped open, and he gulped in a lungful of ice-cold air.
    “I’ve seen that fellow before,” Mannon muttered, pointing.
    “It’s Simon,” Patch groaned. “The fool from Shorham.” He remembered Simon skipping off across the lake in search of a friendlier audience—unwittingly heading for the western shore, near this very place.
    “What on earth are they doing with him?” said Ludowick.
    Simon waved his hands at the trolls that surrounded him. “Hullo, boys!”
    Hurgoth dropped something into the snow in front of the fool. Simon picked it up. It was a goblet.
    “No …,” Patch moaned. He looked at the others. They were watching the trolls with bewildered expressions, except for Addison, who stared gravely back at